The insane ramblings of Lauren Hammond, a YA book author and literary agent.

Talking Destined, With Author Jessie Harrell and eBook Giveaway!

Posted by
Lola7384
at
8:08 AM
Thursday, November 3, 2011

Yay! Readers!

So I loved, loved, loved this book! And I am super excited to welcome Jessie Harrell to the blog today so she can tell you a little bit about her upcoming YA release, Destined.

DESTINED BLOG TOUR: EXAMINING THE OTHER FOOT

Hi everyone! I want to thank Lauren for letting me take over her blog today as part of the official Destined blog tour. This is the first guest post I’ve ever done for someone else’s blog and I hope you don’t hate it. :) The twitter summary of my topic: u can improve ur writing by figuring out what happens when the shoe is on the other foot. Bottom line, if you’re a reader and not a writer, just go ahead and skip to the bottom to read about the novel and the contest. **you can win a free e-book**

For those of you still with us, here’s my thought for the day --

I remember having to come up with a thesis for a 4000 level English lit class on folk tales back in undergrad. (Not quite the most awesome class ever, but close.) As I struggled to come up with something to write about, another student told me that my thesis needed to challenge a common idea. You can’t just say: anthropomorphism is common in folk lore. That’s not a thesis, it’s a fact. A thesis would be something more along the lines of ancient peoples used anthropomorphism in fables as a way of doing x. (btw - I had no recollection of what my thesis actually was for that class) The point being, by learning that I had to challenge a belief to write a compelling paper, I learned to examine things from many different angles.

Fast forward to this spring. Destined was sitting on my computer waiting for me to find the perfect tweak for it. I knew the story was so close, but it was just lacking that little something. After a talk with Georgia McBride (thank you, Georgia!), I realized I’d forgotten to look at my story from all the possible different angles. I’d latched onto the myth of Cupid & Psyche as written and just accepted that Cupid was a spoiled playboy and Venus was a complete b!tch. But was that the best way to tell the story? If I could start from scratch, what would be their motivations, their backstory?

Which made me realize, despite being “gods,” these characters needed to be humanized. Venus needed a reason to become irate with Psyche. Cupid needed a reason to reject Psyche the first time he met her. Along the same lines, I heard someone remark recently that the bad guys in stories don’t think they’re being evil. They have their own perfectly logical explanation for what their doing. To make all of my characters come to life on the page, I realized I needed to find those “logical explanations.”

So my advice to you as writers is to turn each of your characters around and look at them from the other side. You’ve got good guys and bad guys, but how would they act if the shoe was on the other foot? How would the story be different if you were telling it from the “bad guy’s” perspective? Would he or she really seem so bad?

** I note that Lauren does this incredibly well with her new novella He Loves Me, He Loves You Not, telling the story of the “other woman” in a way that makes her the more sympathetic character. Not any easy task.

DESTINED BLURB AND CONTEST

For those of you who skipped ahead, START READING HERE. :) Here is where you get to learn how to win Destined. But first, the blurb:

When Psyche receives a prophecy gone horribly wrong, she learns that even the most beautiful girl in Greece can have a hideous future. Her fate? Fall in love with the one creature even the gods fear.

As she feels herself slipping closer into the arms of the prophecy, Psyche must choose between the terrifyingly tender touch she feels almost powerless to resist and the one constant she's come to expect out of life: you cannot escape what is destined.(summary from goodreads)

If you leave your e-mail address in your comment, you'll be automatically entered to win an e-copy of Destined. The contest will stay open for 48 hours after the post goes live, and then Jessie will use random.org to select a winner. Available formats include .mobi, .epub and .pdf. And please be sure to visit the other stops on Destined's official blog tour for chances to win copies of Destined and other goodies.

Thanks to all who entered and for your support of the novel. This stop's winner was Chingz - who I have e-mailed. Please be sure to hit the rest of the DESTINED blog tour stops for more chances to win!

Famished ebook!!!!

About this blog

I treat others how I would want to be treated.
I love a good book more than anything else.
I'm overly enthusiastic.
I prefer to think about the positive things in life instead of the negative.
I'm extremely loyal.
I dislike liars. (strongly) Honesty is always the best policy.
I love old movies.